Source for real world small action casualty rates

[JasonC]

"a quarter of the regiment's loss during the whole war"

Definition of "outlier".

Yes there are occasions in which a whole battalion was destroyed in a day's fighting. There are occasions on the Russian front where a whole regiment was destroyed in a day's fighting, and plenty in which a Russian rifle division was destroyed in 2-3 days. But this did not happen *every time*, and in CM today, it does.

Casualties are higher in CM than in the real combat it depicts. All the cherry picking in the world can't change that fact.

[kensal]

"a quarter of the regiment's loss during the whole war"

Definition of "outlier".

Yes there are occasions in which a whole battalion was destroyed in a day's fighting. There are occasions on the Russian front where a whole regiment was destroyed in a day's fighting, and plenty in which a Russian rifle division was destroyed in 2-3 days. But this did not happen *every time*, and in CM today, it does.

Casualties are higher in CM than in the real combat it depicts. All the cherry picking in the world can't change that fact.

Well I do not think that we are fundamentally disagreeing with each other - what I think you might consider is that most of the battles that we fight in CM are all probably outliers because they normally represent the most intense engagements in the campaign.

Most (but not all) CM scenarios do not represent the 95% of the engagements / days that occurred in the real campaign involving less intense fighting. I suppose that is probably because a CM scenario involving a historical battalion advance of 1 km over a day in which 25-30 casualties are suffered is going to be less interesting in gaming terms than the much more intense, but much less typical engagements represented by most scenarios.

I don't think therefore that I am cherry-picking - rather we choose to cherry pick the battles we fight in CM. From an academic view point we need to recognise that when we fight these engagements in CM, we should not view them as being the normal day for the units concerned - rather they may represent, for the unit concerned, the single most intense day of the whole campaign.

Having said that I do think that the game might be made more historically accurate if the units we command were, on occasion, more willing to refuse to do what we order, or even do something completely different (like begin to drift to the rear) particularly if they have taken casualties.

[JasonC]

" most of the battles that we fight in CM are all probably outliers"

No they are not. Most. Outliers. Round squares.

I for one use CM to simulate entirely bog-standard tactical combat in the European theater in WW II. I do not exclusively simulate the first day of the Somme, or Omaha beach on D-Day. But the casualty rates seen in *every* CM scenario are those of the Somme or Omaha beach.

It is busted, it is wrong, it is broken, it is inaccurate, it is false. Stop making excuses and admit it, already.

[John Kettler]

JasonC,

Am pretty wiped out, but apropos of your argument about the pernicious effects of catering to leaders when writing history, I thought I'd mention something similar on the Battle of Waterloo. Turns out that the first major work on the battle, by a guy named Siborne, was grossly distorted by a financial shortfall which would've sunk his book well before it ever got to print. Consequently, he had to beg support from the various British regiments, and their accomplishments grew in importance and glory accordingly. Want to say the title of the book was Waterloo Revisited, but so far, am making no headway on this in Google. If you can find this book, read it. You'll never see the battle in quite the same way again.

Also, if you want to talk annihilating casualties, the flank Virginia company on the right of Pickett's Charge, which was shot up frontally with cannon and muskets from Cemetery Ridge and via terrible enfilade cannon fire from Culp's Hill, suffered 99% casualties in what I presume was a time frame on par with CM. This is certainly an extreme outlier, but it does show what even relatively crude weaponry could accomplish.

As for CMx2 casualty rates vs historical ones, I defer to you and your obviously huge and impressive library, since my CMx2 experience is highly limited. I can say, though, that the game excruciatingly duplicates the awful effects of close range MP-40 fire in the bocage. My 18 Platoon AAR makes harrowing reading because of this. In a sense, though, that particular tactical situation in which I got caught on the hop much resembled an ambush, and we all know what kind of firepower is employed on the front end of one of those.

As for game design philosophy, we seem to be on a previously unknown third horn of a dilemma (yes, I recognize the contradiction), one that somehow appears to be an intermediary position between pure sim and design for effect. As I well recall from my military aerospace days, you need to figure out what you're trying to model, for you can't model the world. Similarly, the JMEM (Joint Munitions Effectiveness Manuals) separately modeled blast kill and frag kill, but not both together, and neither ever addressed fire in concert with the other kill mechanisms. Unfortunately, we live in a world in which people have a low tolerance for inaction, but that is the nature of war most of the time, and faithful modeling probably isn't fun gaming. As noted before, with things like microrelief all but not present, self-preservation instincts undermodeled (almost shocking how fast some units broke off the attack in real combat) and other issues, troop vulnerability is exaggerated, directly expressing as a much higher than historical casualty rate.

I don't pretend to know how to resolve the problem, but if the intent is to have a sim, then a great deal of important work remains to be done. If certain fudge factors are changed, then the issue becomes whether the net effect's being right will gain or lose players. Let's face it. The largely electronic only gamers of today are used to highly dynamic combat, but it was the exception, rather than the norm, in WW II. Tactics that work well in, say, World of Tanks are downright suicidal in CMx2, just as MG nest charges became when we went from CMBO to CMBB.

Meanwhile, here's what the pixeltruppen may do to their heartless dunderhead COs if given the chance.

http://wp.patheos.com.s3.amazonaws.com/blogs/nakedpastor/files/2009/02/tug-of-war.jpg

Regards,

John Kettler

[JasonC]

Faithful modeling would be fun gaming. But we have never seen it in tactical scale games with this degree of realism. Design for effect gets these things right effortlessly, because it bases its assessments on what actually happens in the real world, not on engineering abstractions that get only a few of the variables right. But it generally does so on a larger scale than this, and with less immersion detail.

As for what isn't present - yes to cover seeking and self preservation. Yes to micro terrain. But also much more confusion, much less firing, much briefer exposures. Men don't bunch as much in areas that can take fire. They are reluctant to expose themselves to use weapons of marginal impact on the battle.

The true sighting ability prone or making full use of cover is greatly impaired, and is the usual state once fire has opened. Men take cover when they merely *hear* fire, even when it is not directed at them, personally. They continue their mission with reluctance and delay when convinced the fire is not directed at them, and when it is located, and when they trust what they are being asked to do, tactically.

Leaders routinely advance and find that half their men didn't move.

Said leaders either go back and try to rose them, or go on with a few braver men, or they and perhaps some of those braver men get themselves shot very quickly. In the latter case, those around them spend the next *half hour* evac-ing casualties and do not try again, a solid majority of the time.

Detailed combat reports say things like, you can only hear the Brens or the MG42s at any given time, but almost never both going at once. Because when one takes up the song, heads go down over on the other side of the field, and they stay there until the clip is out or the belt fire pauses.

The periods of time in which both sides are within 100 or even 200 yards, are both "heads up", can both see identified enemy personnel in their positions, and both are pulling triggers trying to kill the other side with aimed fire - which is the *norm* in most minutes of CM action - are very very brief in real combat. The most exposed men get shot quickly in that situation, without delivering very much fire. The sides then "LOS separate" - everyone in the mutual sighting zone is dead or ducks. More duck than die, but what they don't do is duck for two seconds and then keep firing for 10 minutes to hit their opposite number.

The tactics required of CM players are better than arcade video games or FPS twitch fests. They are not yet the tactics required of even men in MILES gear in training, let only in real combat with death on the line.

We can all acknowledge that CM is the best we've seen to date, in the engineering - fidelity to detail approach, at all this stuff, without pretending it is perfect. It isn't, we know it isn't, and we can see the places where it is still idealized. All I ask is that people face these things objectively, eyes wide open, and drop the excuses.

[Buzz]

"..Men take cover when they merely *hear* fire, even when it is not directed at them, personally. They continue their mission with reluctance and delay when convinced the fire is not directed at them, and when it is located, and when they trust what they are being asked to do, tactically...."

I have not been in the military. I have had several "opportunities" in real life to be in the line of fire with multiple rounds coming in my direction. When you are down range (especially when down range is < 50 feet from shooter) most people take cover to survive.

"The most exposed men get shot quickly...."

I am sure military training and group cohesion make for different behavior in war. Being armed (I was not in all my down range "opportunities") will make a difference but shots in your direction, even in a non war setting, most survivors look for cover.

Jason's listing of improvements is a solid suggestion but CM as fun "gaming" now for me. Could it better. Yes and it will as it has over years.

[JasonC]

First, completely agree with "people take cover".

"military training and group cohesion make for different behavior"

They try to. If the enemy is exposed enough and the men have confidence that their weapons can protect themselves by taking out the enemy, everyone will fire (contra myths spread by Marshall e.g.) That does come up, especially in static defense situations against reckless attackers. In other words, military training can suffice to get men to expose themselves when "expose themselves" means stand in a foxhole or put their head up around cover while prone and basically a tough target, to shoot their weapon at a seen, exposed enemy.

But that is a pretty limited set of circumstances, and requires a particularly dumb attacker to be relevant for a lot of your force. (Dumb attackers definitely happened - and Darwin got rid of the dumb).

The other place where training and group cohesion can make for different behavior is in a formation not under direct fire, but hearing it, managing to keep moving due to veterans within that force, frantic urgings by non coms and officers, and a clear improvement possible in the tactical position, clear enough and near enough that the individual men can see the point. Where less trained men would go to ground and stay there, confused, trying to figure out what was happening and what, if anything, it was safe to attempt, better led and more experienced men can stay up and advance to a better position, trusting their local leaders and their "read" of the situation, with their lives.

But that has definite limits. If the fire is directed at the men, it gets much harder even with that urging and direction. If the fire is killing some of those leaders who are exposing themselves to continue the movement, the trust between men and leaders is easily overwhelmed by fear. Leadership devolves to its most primitive form, literal example. Sarge did it and he didn't die, maybe it isn't completely crazy.

But usually only a portion of the men are that aware and capable of even that much confidence. It takes truly superior training and experience to do better at that, and it is the mark of especially effective forces that they can accomplish it. In CM terms, it is something only well led veterans can be expected to do.

On CM being fun gaming now, definitely agree. And yes, it has improved over the years. Being objective about how far it has come and what could still be improved is how it has done so; overestimating the former and underestimating the latter would tend to stall that trajectory. Let's help keep it going...

[Buzz]

"On CM being fun gaming now, definitely agree. And yes, it has improved over the years. Being objective about how far it has come and what could still be improved is how it has done so...."

Always interesting writing and thoughts Jason and all. This kind of discussion and knowledgeable customer feedback should help keep it going.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Just saw this.. have not read all the previous posts, but just in case no one has mentioned it... the book you need for everything you want to know about casualty rates and much more than anyone could possible want to know

Attrition: Forecasting Battle Casualties and Equipment Losses in Modern War by Trevor N Dupuy.

Is available out there... not expensive. Tables, rates, everything all in very straightforward format.

BTW. The idea of “average.... “ loss rates is difficult. If you read the book you will find that at the battalion level daily losses were often at CM rates. By which I mean 30% or more a day. The reason why over a division and over several days “average..” loss rates may look low is that on a given day there are often some battalions doing very little. The classic example of this is Kursk.

Buy the book, it is cheap and packed with historical data. No point arguing about it... read the book and make up your own mind.

All good fun,

All the best,

Kip.

PS. I... and my standard opponent when playing live... play very carefully... the life of every digital hero matters to us . If you play slowly and carefully CM casualty rates will fall to historical levels. I also find it more immersive that way.

[kipanderson]

Hi,

Just a quick supplementary to my above post.

The way I enjoy playing and the best way to learn is very long very slow games. I always, near always anyway, whack scenarios into the editor and increase their game length to say two hours for a company attack on a village. This is historically far more realistic than forty minutes due to the pauses to reorganise and such between surges of violence and helps careful, low casualties play style. If you give yourself time, and are careful, it is scary just how much of a simulation CM is....

All the best,

Kip.

[Erwin]

+1 for longer scenarios that allow for proper recon and careful use of valuable troops and assets.

-1 to the short time-deprived scenarios that attempt to create excitement thru forcing one to do hairaisingly suicidal moves cos the scenario itself is (usually) boring. If I want that I'll play an RTS game.

[Whiterider]

Interesting thread! The best improvements for a serious game are those based in real life. Furthermore I´m learning a lot. Feel proud for being part of such an imaginative forum . Deafinitely it is not common out there .

[Michael Emrys]

PS. I... and my standard opponent when playing live... play very carefully... the life of every digital hero matters to us . If you play slowly and carefully CM casualty rates will fall to historical levels. I also find it more immersive that way.

I'm with you on that one, Kip.

Michael

[Michael Emrys]

Is available out there... not expensive.

I would agree with the first part of that. The second part I'm not so sure about. For instance, Amazon is demanding US$183.86 for a new copy. :eek: Fortunately, they also list used copies starting at US$20.95 and up. Way up. Must be long out of print and a limited printing to boot.

Michael

[kipanderson]

Michael, hi,

Here we go.

The Dupuy Institute.

http://www.dupuyinstitute.org/booksfs.htm

Ring them.... I did. For some reason they do not sell their books via Amazon.

All the best,

Kip.

[warrenpeace]

I have been doing some research on my Step-father’s experience in WW2. He was a medic in the fifth armored division attached to B company of the 47th Armored infantry. He was seriously wounded in the battle of the Hurtgen forest on November 25, 1944. Recently, I was able to get my hands on the Morning report from that day. Here is what it says:

25 Nov 44-Hurtgen 1.5 mi SWF028339 Nord de Guerre. Co B left 1 mi W of Gertmeter Germany F012334 Nord de Guerre at 0010. Dismounted on foot and traveled all night to 1.5 mi S. of Hurtgen Germany. Arrived at 7:30 and reorganized. Co B attacked Huertgen Germany but the advance was halted due to constant enemy artillery barrages and anti-tank weapons. An attempt was made toward objective five times by our married company [i assume this refers to a tank company] and each time were halted by anti tank weapons and heavy enemy artillery barrages. The maneuverability was halted of foot due to enemy anti-personnel mine fields and booby traps which caused heavy casualties. The Co held its own position till mid-night and then withdrew to 1 m W of Germeter Germany.

Battle casualties that day were: 3 KIA, 7 SWA, 25 LWA

However, in addition to battle casualties there were a slew of non-battle casualties;

4 LIA (lightly injured, things like sprained ankle, “battle-strained” hip, and abrasions), 4 “slightly SK LD (non-battle disease)” (I assume this means sickness orillness, not sure about LD), and a whopping 22 men that were listed as “non-battle-combat fatigue”.

So basically after combat the unit lost 65 men, or about 25% of its strength, but only 35 of these were from direct casualties. I’m pretty sure this was the worst day of the war for this unit.

Thoughts as relates to CMBN.

1) The ratio of killed to wounded is really different than what is observed in CMBN. Also, CMBN LWA’s (yellow guys) are probably not the same as these LWA’s as all of these men were evacuated after the battle.

2) I’m fairly certain that if you recreated this scenario in CMBN with infantry pinned in a mine field and under 81 mM mortar fire for several hours (even using the slowest rate of fire), casualties would be a lot higher.

3) How does CMBN deal with all the non-battle injuries? I guess these would be represented by “broken” units. However, in a CM campaign, broken units will still be part of a core force. Probably shouldn’t be.

4) Soldiers in CMBN do not suffer non-combat injuries. Sprained ankles could be simulated similar to vehicles bogging.

[Michael Emrys]

Soldiers in CMBN do not suffer non-combat injuries. Sprained ankles could be simulated similar to vehicles bogging.

Maybe some mechanic for reducing the fitness of the squad? This would also cover men suffering from colds or other illnesses that are less disabling than those that require early evacuation.

Michael

[JoMac]

warrenpeace,

I'm still with you and JasonC on this...CM simply causes higher casualites ( even at a Battles most instense firefights ) then necessary for the scale it's simulating ( the increased firepower of Small Arms in 2.0 makes it alittle worse, but that's not the reason ).

Even thou CM is suppose to simulate the tip of Spear of an intense engagement, I would still only expect between 10-25% casualties at most...That's even if we assume that CM represents say 1 minute of game time eqauls 5 minutes of RL Combat due to CM's fast paced atmosphere.

Maybe if the Small Arms Firepower was scaled back abit somehow, then it might come alittle closer to achiving these RL casuality rates.

[LukeFF]

Maybe if the Small Arms Firepower was scaled back abit somehow, then it might come alittle closer to achiving these RL casuality rates.

And that's just not going to happen. The accuracy of the machine guns now represent their real-world effectiveness far, far better than they did in the past.

[Michael Emrys]

Maybe if the Small Arms Firepower was scaled back abit somehow, then it might come alittle closer to achiving these RL casuality rates.

I don't think it is the firepower that needs to be scaled back so much as the troops willingness to fire their weapons and keep firing them. Add in tanks' spurious inclination to spot targets quickly and get accurate fire onto them.

Michael

[warrenpeace]

I have a few thoughts on the high casualties.

1) I think that men are being picked off too easily while prone, or cowering. The sort of "micro" cover that men seek when under fire might not be being simulated effectively. In this battle basically the entire company was pinned down until nightfall. In CMBN pinning for extended periods (like a few minutes) always leads to death. This clearly is not the case.

2) The effects of artillery are a bit too high. Again, micro cover and slight undulations in gound would effect the blast radius and make them less then the theoretical physical calculation.

3) Troop motivation levels should probably be lower. Troops should be greener and less brave.

[womble]

Much of the troops' willingness to keep firing is down to the player. If you Hide them and give them cover arcs behind hard cover like a wall, their casualty rate will be near zero from small arms. If you keep them behind the crest "unable to maneuver", they won't take any casualties from small arms at all. And that report says nothing about infantry being "pinned down". It talks about inability to maneuver because of mines and booby traps. The artillery barrages appear to have been directed at the armour, since that was the unit mentioned as having attempted to approach the objective.

The only interesting point (from a casualties-in-RL vs casualties-in-CM from that report is that it considers the casualties sustained as "heavy" since that does suggest that the "yellow silhouette" casualties aren't the sort of thing that would count as "official" WIA. Other than that, it sounds like they couldn't even get started due to repeatedly finding AP mines the hard way and spent the day not getting anywhere.

[JoMac]

I don't think it is the firepower that needs to be scaled back so much as the troops willingness to fire their weapons and keep firing them. Add in tanks' spurious inclination to spot targets quickly and get accurate fire onto them.

Michael

Actually, that's exactly what I was thinkng when scaling back the firepower...It's good that CM is now tracking individual bullets & Rounds, but Reducing the Spotting times, Troop Moral or Motcivation, and when & how troops fire their Small Arms might be a good part of the answer.

Couple tactical things that come to mind:

I have an issue when troops advance to a tall hedgerow ( not low hedge or wall ), and instantly spot and fire what's on the other side...I would amagine in RL that you would advance up to the hedgerow, then slowly move into it ( taking a minute, and getting their bearings ) to try and get a glimpse what's on the other side.

MGs using a burst of fire to pick off an unbuttoned Tank Commander at 300 meters away...Well, by the end of an hour's CM engagement every Armor will have atleast one crew member KOed or Wounded. We are not talking about a Campaign or Operation ( lasting a week ) where there are reports of high casualty rates for Armored/APC crew members, but rather a single CM short-term engagement.

As warrenpeace mentioned, there needs to be some sort of micro-cover management to allow troops to realistically take fewer casualties.

It gets bad in a Turn-Based game to watch your Squad get pinned down, and one by one get KOed by end of the minute.

[Childress]

3) Troop motivation levels should probably be lower. Troops should be greener and less brave.

Did you ever play CMBB? That's how it was in that game, at least on release; non-stop cowering and crawling. Half the time your guys (including Crack units) were balled up in the fetal position, whimpering 'Mama!'*. Forum members howled in frustration. So Battlefront softened the effect. Casualty rates increased. But did CMBB 1.0 get it right?

Edit:

*which concords with my late father's recollections of WW2. They were scared ****less most of the time. He fought at Kasserine Pass and saw a mate's head blown clean off by a shell. Mind, US troops were REALLY Green at that time.

[Andrew H.]

I'm not sure that CM is too off on the casualties, actually...and I don't think that average casualty figures are relevant.

*Every battle* in CM is the most important battle of the war. It's Team Desobry at Noville and Foy (1st batt./506 PIR took 200+ casualties in a day); it's the 106th ID in the Schnee Eifel; and it's the 26th VG Div. trying to take Bastogne. Across open fields. While being shelled by 105s.

Average days, for people in the front lines, are something like: Dig foxholes, hear some trucks moving around, and be shelled by mortars for 30 minutes. There's one casualty when Private Smith gets a piece of shrapnel in his leg and is sent to the field hospital.

Or - not rare - there is an attack, so you march your company to jumping off point...but you can't find it and the attack goes on without you.